F 15. 64 bit versus 32 bit.

Bill Davidsen davidsen at tmr.com
Tue May 24 15:27:57 UTC 2011


Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> On 05/24/2011 08:19 PM, Nat Gross wrote:
>> Planning to install Fedora 15 on a new partition dual boot win 7.
>> Hardware AMD 1090 (6 core) with 8 gig ram.
>> Doing Java programming and plan to use KVM machines with Fedora as the host os.
>> Of course regular stuff on the web including videos, etc.
>>
>> So, the question is. Is it still advisable to go 32 bit due to
>> stability (say Flash), or can I gain performance and have 99%
>> stability with 64 bit F 15?
>
> Virtualization certainly benefits a lot from x86_64 to the point that
> RHEL6 only supports it on that architecture.  I would recommend going
> with x86_64 for your use cases
>
What? Are you saying that KVM support is out of the PAE 32bit kernel? Because 
libvirt, virt-manager, etc, are definitely shown as available packages. As far 
as limitations and performance go, unless you have applications which push the 
4GB memory limit of PAE, you will be essentially the same in either case, but 
will have a harder time finding third party applications for 64 bit.

I have a pair of systems, i7-950, 12GB RAM, 4x1TB RAID5, doing VM hosting. One 
is fc13 i686, one is fc13 x86_64. There is no obvious performance difference, 
the only benefit of x86_54 is that I can run a 64 bit guest for testing.

So: don't expect a big performance gain from 64 bit, unless you run some huge 
app you would not be likely to see it. Don't expect stability problems, I'm not 
sure that has ever lived up to the hype, the base OS seems fine, and has since 
fc6, when I first tried 64 bit. DO expect more effort in finding 3rd party apps, 
and occasionally some stability problems in that area (the latest 64 bit version 
of vlc locks up in 64 bit, for example).

Don't expect to see a big difference whichever way you go, it depends on your 
desire for 3rd party apps to some extent.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot



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